I started out by acknowledging that growth around prospering cities, even in hazardous environments, often feels “impossible but inevitable,” alluding to a line from the geographer Peirce Lewis that I first read in Peter Applebome’s fine coverage of the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. (The relevant 2005 article, “Where Living at Nature’s Mercy Had Always Seemed Worth the Risk,” is worth reading in full in the current context.)

I added:

The sprawl and growth spreads and the problem is, it’s an area that historically — due in part to both meteorology and geology — is really prone to flash floods.

Then we talked about the political imperatives driving rampant development, which are almost as enduring a feature of the central Texas landscape as its floods and droughts. I said:

It’s a state with a strong tradition of property rights first, the responsibility of the landowner, and governance only on an as-needed basis. That can lead to kind of an imbalance on how things play out.

And we returned to the meteorological context, which creates the state’s perennial flood peril:

While this particular river level was a record, you look back at the state and there’s a map on my website that shows these epic 30-, 40-, 45-inch rainstorms. I was told by hydrologists and environmental scientists that Texas holds a couple of the world records for rainfall. I’ve been in the Amazon and have seen lots of rain. That’s kind of an amazing thing to think of. It’s not like this is an ‘oh my God” moment, like ‘why did this happen’?

It’s worth posting that map of extreme rainfall events again. As I wrote on Twitter yesterday, Texas could be seen to resemble a dartboard.

Photo

A map in a 2005 flood safety report showing past extreme downpours in Texas, drawing on data from the United States Army Corps of Engineers.Credit Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority

Here are couple of Twitter postscripts, the first from Texas Standard, noting that drought could well return and that the state’s water policies will need to focus ever more (particularly with a warming push) on managing too much or too little rain:

Texas is in a pattern of flood and drought. And it may not take long after the flood to see the drought again: //t.co/AH3PXNIFOm

Mike McCaffrey wondered why my previous posts didn’t mention the issue of discounted flood insurance. He was right about the lapse. I was going to include a link to a search for “reptetive loss” and “flood” — which illustrates how frequently taxpayers pay property owners for predictable losses. But I forgot. Better late than never. Here’s our exchange:

Yep, cheap flood insurance is big part of problem, but that, too, is a function of politics. //t.co/UBfs0WnUsZ https://t.co/mdzvIcYeo3

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By 2050 or so, the human population is expected to pass nine billion. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. Dot Earth was created by Andrew Revkin in October 2007 -- in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship -- to explore ways to balance human needs and the planet's limits.